exploring the practice of a discipline

Menu

Plastic in the Human FoodChain?

An urgent march took place on September 21st in the streets of New York City through the environmental organization 350.org. The march took place purposefully two days before the UN Climate Summit commenced in order to emphasize that there is “no planet B”. 310,000-400,000 participants including environmental activists, scientists, locals, inter-faith, protest groups, and academic groups gathered together to “catalyze” action to stop consumption and reliance on plastics and fuel.

In the article Plastic Thoughts on Disaster, Karen Holmberg uses the current People’s Climate March and the Shores of Krakatau to promote a scary metaphor. She began to wonder this fall if a residual metaphor for modern human history’s intersection with environmental disaster is found on the shores of Anak Krakatau. She stresses, that it is time to stop this pollution of our Earth because we are creating our own self-destruction through the unnatural contemporary consumption levels of plastics. Before we know it, plastic not only will cover the Earth, but consequently, it will be intertwined into our food chain. This thought it more than scary. Destruction of Earth will eventually lead to the destructions of culture and then the human race itself.

We have witnessed the death of many cultures because of climate change. Many indigenous groups have had to move their entire culture in order to survive. Contemporary levels of fossil fuel consumption and reliance on petrochemical-based plastics are unsustainable. From a biology perspective, reducing our diversity is very dangerous. It causes an increased homogenization of culture because of environment restrictions and not a lot of value of diversity. Diversity is very important. Environmental degradation leads to plastic in our food chains, which leads to human degradation and finally, cultural decline.